The Nest

Theo Epstein, a mere child by some standards, was born in the big city (The Big City: New York) and made history by becoming the youngest GM in baseball. He came to the Red Sox at the end of the 2002 season at the tender age of 28 and except for 1 year (2006), he’s spearheaded the charge into post season play year in and year out. Two out of those six seasons they brought home the bacon. World Series fever had hit Boston and they liked it. Thank you Theo!

A 1995 graduate of Yale, with a degree in American Studies who would spend his youth just a stone’s throw from Fenway in Brookline, Theo grew up a Sox fan and dreamed of a day when he would work for the franchise. To most you’d say “keep dreaming” but that’s just what he did. After an internship with the Orioles, he took a position in the Padres’ PR department getting his baseball feet wet. He also studied Law at University of San Diego School of Law and passed the California bar although never became a member of the State Bar of California.

He came to Boston with big ideas and of course we’d heard it all before. With few exceptions, New England fans had been hearing broken promises for a long time so why should we believe this Ivy Leaguer? He arrived on the scene and quickly took firm hold of the reins vowing to turn this team into a “scouting and player development machine”.

He helped bring sabermetrics to Boston. The term was coined by Bill James, one of the first to implement the idea. He defines sabermetrics as “the search for objective knowledge about baseball”. Epstein’s “outside the box” thinking  brought James into the organizaion and after winning 2 World Series, it’s hard to argue its benefits.

Theo’s mixture of big name players, shrewd trades and careful cultivation of the kids coming up through the farm system would slowly convince the Fenway Faithful that maybe, just maybe there was something to this kid. It wasn’t long before we’d start to believe, as Curt Schilling would later say “Why not us?”. So with a combination of some gutsy pitching performances by Schilling, Beckett, Timlin and closer Papelbon, clutch hitting from the big guns, a new attitude and a rally cry of Cowboy Up! from Kevin Millar, the Red Sox Would go on to finally bring to an end the tired moans and the “wait ’til next year” laments of Red Sox Nation.

Yes Theo, thank you for exorcising our Ruthian demons, thank you for sewing the seeds of hope and change that every Boston fan had waited on for so many years. Waited to finally enjoy the harvests that were once confined to the big name players and big money teams like our cousins to the south in the Bronx.

And thank you for deciding to take the reins again. It’s a good feeling knowing there’s somebody at the bridge who’s not afraid to make the difficult decisions and who uses his brains and talent and doesn’t have to resort to writing big checks.

epstein red sox boston

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